


kabe-don? more like kabe-dont

by realfakedoors



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: And Stevonnie is confused, And happens to pick up reading manga, Basically Lapis gets jealous, Fluff and Humor, Lapis Lazuli is Bad at feelings, Light Angst, Manga & Anime, Other, Stevonnie is a Ray of Sunshine, kabedon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-23 21:11:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20225137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realfakedoors/pseuds/realfakedoors
Summary: Lapis isnotjealous. She's not. She just happens to identify a lot with this manga protagonist and finds a little inspiration on how to deal with her... irritability.Or, a really stupid idea I had for any ship where one of them is short and angry and the other is tall and patient. Lapvonnie. One-shot.





	kabe-don? more like kabe-dont

**Author's Note:**

  * For [E350tb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/E350tb/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Marooned Together](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14591640) by [E350tb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/E350tb/pseuds/E350tb). 

It’s stupid. And Lapis _knows _it’s stupid.

Blue Pearl and Yellow Pearl are a thing. Stevonnie would never be disloyal to her.

And yet, _knowing it_ just makes her more angry. 

What did PeeDee say that one time—acceptance is the first step towards growth or improvement or… _something_? Yeah, well, Lapis admitting to herself that she _hates this _has accomplished an impressive amount of absolutely nothing except make her feel even more spectacularly awful.

_Thanks, PeeDee. Helpful as always._

She just doesn’t like watching—_it_. Them.

They’re on New Earth right now, Stevonnie having volunteered them to help with some sort of councillor election something-or-other, and Blue Pearl is standing with them across the city square. Lapis is leaning against a building, not listening to the speaker whatsoever, eyes trained to the way Blue Pearl laughs and rests a hand on Stevonnie’s bicep while they both enjoy whatever private joke is shared between them. The manner in which they interact, and touch, and the way Stevonnie evokes smiles and giggles from the lithe blue gem… it makes her own fists shake.

She curls them together tightly, if only to stay her trembling hands. Her palms will have impressions of half-moons for hours after, but she doesn’t care. It’s the only thing keeping her sane as she observes, studying the exact shape of Blue Pearl’s narrow hips and dainty shoulders. She really is just an ode to a perfect, ballerina statue, isn’t she? And there’s her voice, always so soft-spoken, a walking embodiment of grace, from the breezy fall of her bangs to the petite tips of her toes.

It doesn’t make sense. She doesn’t feel this way when Stevonnie interacts with anyone else… is she really _that stupid? _That she’s upset just because Blue Pearl is… _blue_?

The admittance makes Lapis slump her shoulders, hugging an arm self-consciously over her chest. She knows, on some deeply embarrassed level, that it was at least part of the truth.

Lapis _likes _being Stevonnie’s… blue. For how sunny they were, with their dimply smile and bronze-toned skin, to the pink gemstone in their navel and the soft pinks of their fingertips. They even turned green when they got some variation of a space flu, and sometimes the moonlight made their dark skin pale and glittery. They were everything, every color, every shade—

But not blue. That was Lapis. That was her silly, miniscule way of making sense of Stevonnie sometimes. They were everything, so brilliant it made her chest hurt to think about, and Lapis was the one thing that they didn’t already have, couldn’t make up for with their gem-human physique.

The roughness of her own edges felt like they were perfectly fitted to Stevonnie’s smooth ones, most days. But on occasion, her thoughts, worries, and old, _old _anxieties would still rear their heads from time to time. 

Like right now. Right now, all she knows is that it hurts to see how nice they look together. _Happy_.

Was she not so special after all? Maybe their relationship romance was more bitter than sweet, after all. Did Stevonnie want someone who could make them happier? Someone soft and smooth and flawless? They certainly _deserve_ someone who was all of those things, and Lapis… she wasn’t any of those things. She was jagged and confusing and overly emotional—just like she was being right now—and Stevonnie was just happy, over there, without her. 

* * *

Hours later, back in their little home, on their little stretch of land, on their little planet, Lapis feels a bit better. Jeff had noticed that something was wrong and offered to take a walk, distract her for a bit. Lapis begrudgingly accepted, but she is glad in retrospect; it did help to soothe her frayed nerves.

They had toured the museum together, going through some of the new finds from a recent raid. The teams had recovered so much art and literature at that point, they reorganized with an added library specifically for written works. It was easily her favorite part of the structure now, and Jeff told her she was welcome to pocket a few books with the promise to bring them back.

A funny-looking storybook caught her eye, so she ended up borrowing a small collection of… _manga_, that was how Jeff pronounced it. He even had a few recommendations since Lapis enjoyed reading something with pictures.

Not only did it provide a decent distraction, but boy if it wasn’t _informative_.

Swinging slightly in her hammock, she flips through the backwards margins eagerly, absorbing as much of the stories as she can. Her earlier bad mood is all but forgotten… until, of course, Stevonnie pipes up after they returned from a jog.

“Hey, Laps!” They leaned over and pecked the blue gem’s cheek. “Did you have a good time with Jeff earlier?”

“Mmm,” she hummed pleasantly, thumbing over to the next page. “Yeah. I like these ‘comic books’. They’re from a place called _Japan_.”

“Oh, very cool! Connie’s Dad used to love those. She had read a few, couldn’t really get into them, but they were still good. Just not for her, if I remember right.” Stevonnie sighed, wrestling out their hair from a tangly braid. “Oh! Earlier, I almost forgot—Blue Pearl was talking to me about coming and seeing her new apartment.”

Lapis attention shifts from her book, blinking up at her partner. The words wash against her mind like a high tide, gritting against the drying sands.

“She and Yellow are still doing their thing,” they continued. “But Yellow is going to be off New Earth for a bit and Blue said she wanted to downsize into something more comfortable… I offered to help her move this weekend!”

“Ah,” she says, “and I’m sure you said yes.”

“Of course!” Stevonnie beams. “You can come if you want, but I just figured you don’t really like moving stuff, so.”

“I’ll come,” Lapis says, perhaps a little sharper than necessary. “I can be helpful.”

There’s a silence, just long enough for it to become uncomfortable, and Stevonnie clears their throat.

“Are you… okay, Laps? You seem...”

“_What!?_” she snaps. “Why wouldn’t I be okay? What do I _seem _like?”

“N-Nothing! Nothing bad, I just… you’re kind of, um, off. Did I... do something?”

“No, you didn’t!” Lapis grits her teeth and gets up. She doesn’t know why she’s shouting, or why she’s so angry. “That’s the problem!”

Stevonnie puts their hands up, brow furrowed in a look of confusion, and it makes Lapis frustrated. They’re too nice! Why can’t she just… just… _be mad about this? _Or get over it?! One or the other—this in-between stupid, nonsensical space was just annoying.

“I… I’m sorry that I… _didn’t do anything_?” Stevonnie manages an awkward grin, and Lapis wants to throw her book at them just for something for them to get mad about. She was angry with them for something they didn’t even do, for feelings of… of… _resentment _that were completely silly.

But the feelings still clung to her, dripped ichor from the space between her ribs, a black tar that pooled in the pit of her stomach. It was one she remembered, still haunts her on occasion, a silly, pitiless emotion that thrived off being awful and mean and raging so she doesn’t have to bother with anything else.

Too annoyed with herself, Lapis finds she can’t face Stevonnie, doesn’t know _how _to face them with all her shame. _They deserve better. They deserve better. They deserve better._ Her eyes fall to the book she had been reading minutes ago, and a similar moment of crisis had just fallen upon the main character. Upon confronting the source of their anger, they ended up reaching a solution… maybe she just... needed to face this head on? Not bother with the raging and violent triggers, and to just tell Stevonnie exactly what her problem was?

_But what if they leave you?_

No… no, they wouldn’t.

_Won’t they?_

“Ugh!” Lapis grips the side of her head, almost brought to tears by her own emotional vices.

There is more of a sense in the space of the barn, when Stevonnie starts to move closer, rather than Lapis actually seeing them, and it is the final straw. She doesn’t want them to _comfort her_, because she didn’t even have a _good reason to need comfort in the first place!_ There was no way out of this without feeling worse, that she could see—so what did she have to lose?

Glancing up, gaze frosty, Lapis stops Stevonnie dead in their tracks with nothing but her glare. It’s a bit empowering to know that she can elicit such a strong response from them, but Lapis isn’t nearly finished, and in a moment of satisfied, physical release, she advances on them until they are up against the wall of the barn.

Her hands meet the wood paneling on either side of their shoulders, and she stares them down, as if she could _will _them to love her and all of her stupidity by sight alone.

“I don’t like you spending so much time with Blue Pearl,” she admits, voice completely flat. “I’m angry and I shouldn’t be. You can spend time with anyone you want but seeing you with her just makes me so… _mad._”

Stevonnie, bless their infinite patience, was merely surprised by the turn of the conversation, and their worry melted into something softer, something unbearably tender that Lapis loved and hated and _loved_ and_ hated._

“Lapis… you don’t need to worry. I love you, okay? Only you.”

“I… I know…” Lapis sighs, hanging her head, but she doesn’t drop her hands from where they pin Stevonnie to the wall. “I just wish I could have you all to myself sometimes. Is it wrong?”

She glances up, nervous. “That I sometimes wish we could go back to before New Earth entirely? I miss what we had. When we could just be together all the time…”

A thumb brushes a lone tear from the blue gem’s cheek, and Lapis is startled to find that she had started to cry.

“I sometimes do,” Stevonnie nods, smiling with unspeakable fondness. “But I think about how I love you more each day, too, and it sort of makes it all worth it. If we were stuck in that spot in time, we might never have had a chance to grow. And I gotta admit, being pinned up against the wall by you is something I don’t think would have happened unless you got a little bit jealous. So no complaints here!”

“H-Hey!” Lapis chuckles, unable to help herself, and hangs her head in annoyed, semi-amused defeat. “I didn’t… I wasn’t... _jealous_.”

“Yes, you were. You just kabedon’d me to the barn wall, for pete’s sake.”

“Who… who is Pete?”

Exhaling a breathy laugh, Stevonnie rests a hand on the top of their girlfriend’s messy blue hair. “Don’t worry about Pete. But I will say, in the future, sweetheart, maybe use your giant, terrifying watery fists if you want to intimidate me. You’re almost a foot shorter than me, and it’s sort of like being cornered by an angry pomeranian.”

“A _pomer-what-now_?”

“A pom—you know what, nevermind. Come here you,” Stevonnie scoops up Lapis by the waist and they twirl in a rowdy, giggling hug, spinning and spinning until the fusion is too dizzy to hold Lapis up anymore.

Staggering into the hamper, they collapse together with breathless laughter. Stevonnie brushes the bangs back from Lapis burning blue cheeks. “I love you Laps, you know that, right?”

“I know. I’m sorry for being… _you know_.” Embarrassed, she shrugs, and Stevonnie doesn’t ask her to elaborate. “I love you too.”

“And maybe no more manga. Or, like, not anything Jeff recommends again. At this rate I could come home and you’ll be a straight-up tsundere. I’m not sure I’ll mentally know how to handle that.”

Lapis raises a brow. “Are you just making up words at this point?”

“I wish I was,” Stevonnie answers in a long-suffering, solemn tone. “I wish I was.”


End file.
